Boost For Mumbai Hotels – 20 Licenses Abolished For Ease Of Doing Business!

Maharashtra Govt. is on a reform spree this year end, as they are doing everything possible to boost business sentiments in the state, and enable even greater ease of doing business environment.

In their recent salvo, the State Govt. has removed 20 major licenses for hotels, bars and eateries, which were earlier required to be annually renewed.

The hotel industry is celebrating this decision as a New Year gift from the State Govt.

Yesterday, we had reported that businesses in Maharashtra can now operate 24×7, thereby becoming the first state to do so.

Maharashtra is certainly setting an example when it comes to promoting entrepreneurship and creating conditions for doing business in a smooth way.

20 Hotel Licenses Abolished In Maharashtra

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has taken the crucial decision to remove requirement of 20 major licenses for restaurants, hotels, bars in Mumbai, after State Govt. advised them on promoting Ease Of Doing Business initiatives.

While 10 licenses have been completely removed; the other 10 have been merged with existing licenses, thereby saving time and resources for hoteliers in the mega-city.

Now, the licenses which are required for operating a hotel, restaurant or bar in Mumbai will be provided by health, pest control, fire, environment, and building & factory departments of BMC.

In September this year, around 43 restaurants, hotels and bars had to shut shop due to some irregularity in license procurement, and the primary reason was the inconvenience due to 40 mandatory licenses which was required earlier.

At that time, Dilip Datwani, president of Hotels and Restaurants Association, Western India (HRAWI), had said,

“Money is no constraint, but red tape forced many hotels to bend rules. Obtaining 40 permissions was tedious and costly due to lack of transparency and corrupt practices.”

Now, with scrapping of 20 licenses, things will drastically improve.

Hoteliers Rejoice; Hospitality Industry Is Celebrating The Move

As the announcement came, entire hotel industry in Mumbai erupted in joy, as the tedious process of obtaining 40 odd licenses was proving to be too time consuming.

Although there won’t be any financial benefits, as the restaurants and hotels will still end up paying around Rs 9 lakh annually for the licenses, the process has now become more simplified, and the regulations eased.

Adarsh Shetty, president of AHAR said,

“The move was cleared last year by which time many of us had already procured licences for this year. However, it’ll bring us relief in 2018. We are looking forward to proper implementation of the new licence regime,”

AHAR has around 8000 restaurants and hotels under their wings.

Meanwhile The Hotel and Restaurant Association Western India (HRAWI) spokesperson Pradip Shetty has demanded a single window license procurement system to save time, and to streamline the system.

He said,

“Most of these licences had lost relevance. We hope the government will also change some archaic laws to make them relevant. We look forward to efficiency and transparency through a single-window system as promised by the government, and also hope our demand for creation of 24-hour tourism zones is fulfilled,”

It would be interesting to observe how it changes the dynamics of hospitality industry in the state, and whether other states can take a clue from this..

We will keep you updated!